Sue Hulett: Obama must press on with tougher Iran sanctions

Many ask: does Iran pose a threat to the United States, and, if so, how ought President Obama respond? Let's review. Iran and the United States have been adversaries and competitors for influence in the Middle East since the 1979 take over in Iran by religious clerics embracing Islamist theocracy, ...

Many ask: does Iran pose a threat to the United States, and, if so, how ought President Obama respond?

Let's review. Iran and the United States have been adversaries and competitors for influence in the Middle East since the 1979 take over in Iran by religious clerics embracing Islamist theocracy, dictatorship and terrorism against Israel and the United States for 30 years. Most recently, the Iranian-U.S. issue concerns Iran’s strategy to become a nuclear power (if not dominate power in the Middle East.)

Iran gave direct assistance to al-Qaida for bombing U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. In 2011, the Obama administration named six al-Qaida operatives in Iran who were part of a long-time Iranian/al-Qaida network. One of these operatives, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who, before the United States killed him in a drone strike, was Osama Bin Laden’s planner for a “bigger than 9/11 attack” in the United States. So, would Iran share nuclear weapons with al-Qaida or threaten to use nukes against Israel, Saudi Arabia, or the U.S., once it completes its nuclear program? It seems foolish to rule out these possibilities. Iran and al-Qaida have already made similar threats.

This pattern of hostility continues into 2012 — along with a 15-plus year pattern of American and European inability to use diplomacy or sanctions to prevent Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. In November 2011, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, in another evaluation of Iran’s nuclear capability, warned of Iran’s near readiness to develop and deploy nuclear weapons.

Obama finally got off the schneid after the Senate voted 100-0 to strengthen global and U.S. sanctions to reduce Iran’s oil revenues. After early criticism of the sanctions bill, Obama signed it Dec. 31. Iran, increasingly suffering economic stress from current sanctions, responded to recent tough-sanctions talk with a 10-day naval war game in the international waterway of the Strait of Hormuz.

Through the narrow Strait of Hormuz flows 17-20 percent of the world’s oil — shipped from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc. Free passage is protected by the presence, since 1987, of a strategic partner of these states (excluding Iran) — the United States. Iran, which recently grabbed several islands belonging to the U.A.E. that lie near the middle of the strait, now proclaims — in violation of the international law of the sea — that Iran “owns” the strait. The law, honored by most states (including Iran), notes that international straits belong to no single state and are to be open to all shipping — commercial and military.

In December, Iran’s military declared that warships must receive Iran’s “permission” to enter the strait and that it would forcibly repel foreign warships. Iran’s state-run news agency boasted that Iran had chased U.S. ships out of the strait. In January, members of Iran’s sham Parliament — Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his proxy president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, actually rule Iran — announced that Iran will bar warships from the area.

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The United States dismissed Iranian rhetoric and war games as bluffs and bluster. But, have the recent Obama-patterns of waffling in the region and largely ineffective sanctions and diplomacy enhanced Iran’s flexibility to such an extent that the United States will be unwilling or unable to call Iran’s so-called “bluff?”

I argue that the U.S. should do the following:

1. Impose tougher economic sanctions;

2. Reassert that the mission to prevent Iran’s acquiring of nuclear weapons will proceed with all options — including military — remaining “on the table;”

3. Shore up allies/partners in the region — including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain (all with U.S. bases or installations), and Turkey, a NATO ally;

4. Work with new governments in Iraq, Libya, and Egypt — including moderate Islamist and secular groups;

5. Keep the pressure on Syria’s dictator (Assad) in coalition with the Arab League, Europe, and Turkey; and

6. Battle terrorism in the region.

Most of these are easily said, but harder to do or pay for.

Some call for appeasement, acquiescence to the “inevitability” of Iran’s becoming a new nuclear superpower, and U.S. retrenchment from the costs of intervention on behalf of stability and oil flow in the larger Middle East. Others call for a pre-emptive military strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities or navy.

I propose a middle path: the United States rejects appeasement or retrenchment and keeps military options — as a deterrent threat — on the table. While the United States should use the tacit threat of a military option as a deterrent mechanism, it must also be prepared for any contingency.

If Iran is bluffing, well, two can play that game. I believe Iran does not want a war (or a disruption of its desperately needed oil exports) any more than the United States wants war. Iran has a paranoid, brutally repressive, blustering, expansionist and religiously fanatic regime. However, it is a regime that wants to stay in power and therefore must understand (we assume) that if the United States and Europe call its bluff, then Iran’s weakening economy, emerging political divisions and military inferiority give it too weak a hand to bluff its way to victory.

Bottom-Line: Obama must show resolve and press on with sanctions to derail Iran’s nuclear weaponization program and its strategy of bluff and disruption in the Middle East.

L. Sue Hulett is the Richard P. and Sophia D. Henke Distinguished Professor of Political Science and chair of the Political Science Department at Knox College.